Belarus’ Home Ministry: “Frontier guards can stop you and say you’re in the data base”

The police have elaborated the presidential decree on abolition of permission stamp to leave the country. At the same time it is proposed to accept the Clause on the data base of the citizens prohibited from leaving abroad. The new rules are supposed to come into force on 1 January 2008.

Radio Svaboda asked first assistant of the head of the Belarusian Home Ministry citizenship and migration department Aliaksiei Biagun why the Clause on the data base was needed when there already exists a data base and the frontier is under control.

“The base should be legalized. Let’s say, tomorrow you’re leaving abroad. Frontier guards can stop you and say you’re in the data base. You can appeal against such a decision on listing into the data base in court,” the official said.

Lawyer Yury Chausau commented on the intentions of the Home Ministry. “I cannot estimate this decision as positive or negative. But in case there is an open decree (and we all know there are many secret decrees), we’ll have an opportunity to appeal to certain legal norms and demand keeping to them in the situations which previously had no legal regulation,” the lawyer said.

Now opposition leaders can protect their rights in court, Yury Chausau remarked, since now there are many cases that people are kept at frontiers for hours and are searched thoroughly.